Page 32 of The Island of Lost Girls

14 | Robin

She had assumed that an honorary consul would be some sort of diplomat, but it turns out that he’s just a drunk who makes himself available in the lobby of the Heliogabalus Hotel during cocktail hour, to tell people like her what can’t be done. A prissy little man from another era by the name of Benedict Herbert. Good shoes, though. There’s a last in London with his name on.

‘You understand,’ he tells her, ‘this is a very busy week. We’ve the festa, on Wednesday, and then on Saturday the duke is throwing a bal masqué for his birthday. He’s seventy, you know. We’re swarming with VIPs.’

We. Easy to tell where his loyalties lie.

He is drinking a martini. A stemmed glass, condensation on the outside, a single olive on a stick. He turns, turns, turns it on the table-top, coaster discarded, leaving damp trails on the wood for someone else to clean up. As he affects giving her his attention, his eyes wander the crowd, looking for stories more interesting than her own.

‘I know,’ she says. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

His attention immediately reverts. ‘Oh, really?’

He looks startled. Ha. He thinks he’s misread her. He thinks she’s a VIP in mufti. Bet he wishes he’d paid more attention to what she was saying now.

‘My daughter,’ she reminds him. ‘She said she was coming for a party.’

The lights switch off again. He looks her up and down, checks her jewellery and calculates her net worth. Places her back in her pigeonhole.

‘I don’t think so,’ he says.

He raises his glass to a passing woman, pantomimes tapping his watch and rolling his eyes. He doesn’t even try to conceal the gesture. It must be a real pain to him that consular status comes with the burden of occasionally having to have contact with the British taxpayer.

‘Really? Is that all you’ve got to say?’

He sighs. Fishes out his olive and chews it, slowly. Probably all the solid food he’ll be having tonight.

‘Mrs … ’

‘Hanson.’

‘Hanson. Yes. Oh. You’re not … ?’ Again a flicker of interest.

‘No, not one of those Hansons.’

‘Ah. Okay.’

‘We were talking about my daughter.’

‘Yes. So look, Mrs Hanson. I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t work that way. The duke’s worked like hell over the years to make this tiny country somewhere where the international set want to come, and he didn’t do that by inviting random teenagers to parties. Do you think Bernie Ecclestone goes about handing out tickets to the Monaco Grand Prix in Starbucks? I mean, where would she even have met him?’

‘Are you going?’

A puff of self-importance. ‘To the ball?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course.’

She looks at him.

‘I went to school with the duke,’ he says proudly.

Eton, probably. ‘That’s nice. So you’re old friends?’

‘Yes. Very.’

‘So couldn’t you just … ask him? If she’s on the guest list? I mean, it’s not completely impossible she’s got herself an invite, is it?’